Homemade Lasagna On A Budget

Cooking on a budget doesn’t mean sacrificing your favorite meals, like lasagna. In the past, I used to spend between $25 to $30 on lasagna ingredients, but now I’ve figured out how to make it for just $10, and I’m here to share my budget-friendly lasagna recipe with you. The key to preparing homemade lasagna on a budget is a little bit of advance meal planning, ensuring you get the most bang for your buck.

For this week’s meals, I planned on making homemade ravioli, lasagna, and a chicken pasta salad. Here’s a breakdown of the ingredients I used:

• 16-ounce container of Ricotta
• 1 cup package of Italian Shredded Cheese
• A $1 package of sausage
• Canned spaghetti sauce
• Split chicken breasts (I had these in my freezer)

All together, including the price of the amount of chicken I used, this adds up to about $17 worth of ingredients.

For the ravioli, I combined 1 cup of Ricotta, 1 cup of Italian Shredded Cheese, and 1 can of spaghetti sauce. I made my own ravioli pasta and even had enough pasta left over to make bow-tie pasta for the chicken pasta salad. I cooked two split chicken breasts, using half for the chicken pasta salad and saving the other half for the lasagna.

Making the lasagna pasta was straightforward. I prepared the dough, cut it into strips, and even had some leftover pasta that I turned into fettuccine and froze for future use. For the lasagna filling, I mixed the remaining Ricotta and Italian Shredded cheese with 2 eggs, seasoned it with salt and pepper, and set it aside. In a pot, I combined two cans of spaghetti sauce with the cooked sausage and chicken. Then, it was time to layer everything into my casserole dish.

I opted not to boil the lasagna pasta before assembling it. The result was a lighter pasta, but I’m planning to try boiling it beforehand next time to see which texture my family prefers. I spent $1 each on the canned spaghetti sauce and sausage, and I estimate the rest of the ingredients to be about $6. In total, these three meals cost me about $17.

Meal planning that allows you to “share” ingredients across different dishes helps reduce the overall cost per meal. High-priced ingredients that can be divided among multiple meals help you get the most value out of your grocery budget. One of my favorite money-saving tricks is making my own pasta. While it takes some time, it only requires about 2 1/2 cups of flour to make one batch of pasta, and it’s something my daughter enjoys helping with. Do you have any budget-friendly cooking tips to share?